Activision announces that Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is now available in North American stores for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, hopefully delivered by trucks that then became giant robots. Here's word on the "deep, emotional tale" in the latest game based on the toy/cartoon/movie franchise:

Fight through some of the most pivotal moments in the TRANSFORMERS saga with Activision Publishing, Inc.'s (Nasdaq: ATVI)TRANSFORMERS: FALL OF CYBERTRON video game available now at retail outlets nationwide. Created by acclaimed developer High Moon Studios and serving as the official canon story for Hasbro's legendary TRANSFORMERS property, TRANSFORMERS: FALL OF CYBERTRON gives gamers the opportunity to experience the final, darkest hours of the civil war between the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS, eventually leading to the famed exodus from their dying home planet. With the stakes higher and scale bigger than ever, players will embark on an action-packed journey through a post-apocalyptic, war-torn world designed around each character's unique abilities and alternate forms, including GRIMLOCK's fire-breathing DINOBOT form and the renegade COMBATICONS combining into the colossal BRUTICUS character.

"This is where it all began, it's the epic story of the TRANSFORMERS leaving their home planet," said Peter Della Penna, Studio Head, High Moon Studios. "From day one, we knew we were going to create the definitive TRANSFORMERS video game, a phenomenal action experience combining a deep, emotional tale with one-of-a-kind gameplay that lets you convert from robot to vehicle whenever you want."

"This is the fall of their homeworld, and by far the biggest scale we've ever seen in a TRANSFORMERS game," said Mark Blecher, SVP of Digital Media and Marketing, Hasbro. "We could not be any happier teaming up with the great talent at High Moon Studios to deliver the official backstory of the colossal battles that led to the TRANSFORMERS' exodus from Cybertron. We can't wait to have fans and gamers experience this amazing title."

Verno wrote on Aug 21, 2012, 11:01:The port of the first game was pretty barebones, gonna skip this until its on extreme sale. The last time they didn't even offer key rebindings and they locked out the config files.

And 30fps cap!

Fortunately for the 30FPS cap there was a 3rd party utility to unlock the framerate. Still dumb though.

Not to blame Activision for everything, but I seem to recall High Moon flat out stating that there wouldn't be a PC port about a month before the announcement of the farming out of the port. I have a feeling that this was more a case of Activision telling High Moon that there would be a PC port whether they were involved or not, and then it was shopped out to the least expensive available option, no matter how inexperienced.

Good thing about no coop is that they don't have to design a whole level around a generic character, so now each level feels really unique and makes use of each Transformer's special abilities. Not sure it was a worthwhile tradeoff, but it wasn't like they just dropped it for absolutely NO good reason.

The PC version though is ridiculous. One setting for detail (low/med/high/extreme) and no key configuration at all. You can hook up a gamepad, and strangely, there's a few key config *presets* you can pick from, but of course, if you're configuring keys, presets aren't much help. High Moon has no idea what is important in a PC port, I guess.

Verno wrote on Aug 21, 2012, 11:01:The port of the first game was pretty barebones, gonna skip this until its on extreme sale. The last time they didn't even offer key rebindings and they locked out the config files.

And 30fps cap!

Fortunately for the 30FPS cap there was a 3rd party utility to unlock the framerate. Still dumb though.

Verno wrote on Aug 21, 2012, 11:01:The port of the first game was pretty barebones, gonna skip this until its on extreme sale. The last time they didn't even offer key rebindings and they locked out the config files.

Watter wrote on Aug 21, 2012, 10:43:If this had campaign co-op (like the first) it may well have been a full price, day one purchase, but without it, it's at most a "maybe if I happen to see it on sale sometime" kind of purchase.

I enjoyed the first one quite a bit with a buddy of mine. Despite the setting, the sound effects and animation did a great job of making it fee like Transformers should feel.

Wait, what? No coop campaign? That's the whole reason I bought the last one, so I could play with my bro and nephew. Without it, I don't really see the point.

Watter wrote on Aug 21, 2012, 10:43:If this had campaign co-op (like the first) it may well have been a full price, day one purchase, but without it, it's at most a "maybe if I happen to see it on sale sometime" kind of purchase.

I enjoyed the first one quite a bit with a buddy of mine. Despite the setting, the sound effects and animation did a great job of making it fee like Transformers should feel.

According to the steam page, this game does have Coop. I would be curious to see if it really does.

Wait, what? Yeah, can we get confirmation on this? I was about to demand that Steam take my money so I could play this with my friend over the weekend, but if it doesn't have campaign co-op I won't bother.

Edit: Co-optimus says "Four players can team up for the online Escalation mode." for the PS3 version... if it's the same for all platforms, then color me disappointed. Ugh.

Maybe I'm missing the changes but from the demo I played this feels like the first game repackaged. I was expecting the MP to be improved, graphics to look better, more of everything to toy around with and after an hour of the demo on the ps3 I was left feeling like this is the same game.

Maybe they didn't make a very good demo but I'm left feeling like I did when the first one came out...it's a good game...but not $60 good.

Verno wrote on Aug 21, 2012, 11:01:The port of the first game was pretty barebones, gonna skip this until its on extreme sale. The last time they didn't even offer key rebindings and they locked out the config files.

My thoughts exacly Verno,

Iím a little concerned about the lack of Keyboard remapping. I had to use Auto Hot Key for the last game. Itís a work around, but never should be a final solution. Devs really need to pull their heads out between the cracks, because this is getting very old and all to failure with games these days.

I've seen the "quick look" video of this game on Giant Bomb and they were talking about the coop there. I think it is different then it was in the first game.Here is the link to it: http://tinyurl.com/9vszjeq

Watter wrote on Aug 21, 2012, 10:43:If this had campaign co-op (like the first) it may well have been a full price, day one purchase, but without it, it's at most a "maybe if I happen to see it on sale sometime" kind of purchase.

I enjoyed the first one quite a bit with a buddy of mine. Despite the setting, the sound effects and animation did a great job of making it fee like Transformers should feel.

According to the steam page, this game does have Coop. I would be curious to see if it really does.

Complete with day 1 $10 DLC. It's not a huge thing, just cosmetics, but still kind of... shady, I guess. I shouldn't be surprised with this being Activision; but I'm still a little disappointed disappointed.